Utility meters for water or gas have for many years used a flow metering element, such as a turbine, paddle wheel or nutating disc, or other element which is disposed in a housing connected in a pipeline.
The utility meter assembly has been completed by a meter register, which has had a mechanical gear arrangement driving an odometer-style set of number wheels disposed under a glass or crystal for visual observation of accumulated flow totals by a meter reading technician.
In recent years, remote read-out devices have been provided to relay the accumulated totals to the outside of a residence or building for easier access by a meter reading technician. Radio systems have also been introduced in which the quantities of consumption are signaled by RF signals from the meter to a data collection vehicle or to a fixed RF receiving station.
Olson et al., U.S. Pat. No. 6,611,769, discloses an electronic meter register for a water meter in which the mechanical gear arrangement has been replace by electronic circuitry.
Lazar et al., U.S. Pat. Pub. No. US2007/0186644, discloses an electronic meter register for a fluid meter converting mechanical-to-electrical transducer signals to radio signals for transmission to an external device as the primary mode of reporting utility consumption.
In view of the development of electronic meter registers with transmitters, transceivers and other electronic functions, it is desired to provide a quick and easy way of installing and configuring the meter registers in the field.
An existing method to configure an electronic register uses an interface box that creates a wired serial connection between the electronic register and a laptop computer. This method requires that the computer have a DB9 serial port available. Many new laptop computers are no longer manufactured with a DB9 serial port. The nature of this method requires that a computer be present and connected to the electronic register transmitter through the interface box.
As disclosed in Olson et al., U.S. Pat. No. 6,611,769, an existing method to cause the display screen to cycle on an electronic register requires a swipe by the register with a strong external magnet. The magnet swipe can only be used to cycle the display and not to change the functions of the device.